Category: Chocolates/Truffles

My daughter now has a little brother but until 6 months ago she was an only child; luckily we do have a street full of other children to play with.

The problem is me, I’m starting on the new adventure of parenting called ‘Entertaining other people’s children’! So on a Saturday morning in the summer I ended up with 6 girls playing in my garden (sometimes happily, sometimes bickering) but only one was mine.

I thought it would be a good idea to invite them in to come and make cakes which they were very excited to do.

I told them all to ask their parents whilst I set up my kitchen for something I was hoping would be a fun task for them all… And it was!

After diligently washing their hands each girl had their own little bowl and a teaspoon, and in the middle of the table I set up an array of things. There were lots of cupcake cases, rice crispies, glace cherries, marshmallows, raisins and my special case of cake decorations. I did the job of melting white chocolate over a bain marie then gave each girl two tablespoons of white chocolate. I instructed them to add their own treats and stir all together. Once complete they each put them into two cupcake cases, decorated with random decorations like silver balls and voila! 6 happy girls and 12 awful looking (but lovingly crafted) rocky roads.

It was a lot of fun and surprisingly easy to clean up. Bowls in the dishwasher, left over marshmallows in the bin and a quick hoover.

If you ever need ideas for a baking party then this is definitely it. They were proud of their cakes and so were the parents. Next time it’s decorating cupcakes…

White chocolate rocky road cakes

Large bar of white chocolate

Little marshmallows

Dried fruit (glace cherries, raisins)

Anything for optional crunch (rice crispies, nuts)

In a bain marie melt the chocolate slowly whilst stiring. A bain marie is a pot over hot water without the bottom of the pot touching the water. You can do it in a microwave as well but be careful to melt in short bursts and keep stirring.

Take the bowl off the heat (or out of the microwave) and stir in handfuls of the other ingredients till they stick together nicely without too much extra chocolate about but also not too dry they won’t hold their shape.

Then either pat down gently into a tray or spoon into individual cupcake cases. Whilst the chocolate is still warm sprinkle any decorations you like.

Chill in fridge for half hour till set.

Don’t worry, they are never going to be the cutest of cakes but kids and adults will love them! And they’re great for no baked cake emergency.

Due to the usual Christmas lull I’ve reduced the amount of sweet making and baking down to a minimum but after I made a Black Forest Gateaux inspired cake I was left with 300ml of double cream.

I decided that it was a sign, a sign to make chocolate truffles! Not that I really needed a sign but you know, inspiration comes in many forms and this time it came in exactly 300ml of cream.

I love to make truffles but the part I don’t like is the rolling and shaping, it is messy and I never seem to do a really good job of it. This time I am going to try different methods one day – rolling in cocoa, coating in chocolate and piping into chocolate moulds.

I have found the ones coated in a dusting of cocoa powder to be the most successful ones to eat so far but they are not the prettiest. I think this is because the truffle mix was a little too soft when I tried to shape and because I am not very good yet at tempering chocolate.

Rolling them in cocoa powder is the easiest to do.

I flavoured the inside of the truffle mix with cherry and rolled in cherry cocoa powder, from the company Sugar and Crumbs. Although these are a little bitter (maybe some icing sugar added next time) they look more like truffles and are easier to shape.

I might be a long, long way from master chocolatier but these look a lot more impressive than the skills required to make them.

Dusted Cherry Truffles

Ingredients

300g Dark Chocolate

300ml Double Cream

50g Butter

1 tablespoon cherry liquor

Cocoa Powder (ideally cherry flavoured)

Method

Chop up your chocolate and put into a large bowl and set aside

In a pan heat up the cream and butter slowly till the butter melts and the cream begins to simmer. This is where you start to get a few gentle bubbles on the top, try not to boil it!

Immediately pour over the chocolate and stir until it the chocolate has melted

Add in your cherry liquor, or any other flavour you fancy. Add it a little at a time and taste as you don’t want to add too much and make it too strong.

When the mix has cooled a little, refrigerate for at least 4 hours

Take the mix out of the fridge and either using a teaspoon or a melon baller, spoon out truffle sized pieces and working very quickly roll them in your hands till they are ball shaped

Once you have the shape roll them into the cocoa powder and set aside

After all of them are finished, keep them in the fridge in an airtight container and they should last a couple of days (if you don’t eat them all in one night and feel completely sick)

My second foray into chocolate making has appeared to have been quite successful. This time I wanted to make some truffles for my sister using a couple of her favourite flavours – white chocolate and strawberry.

Unfortunately I have had to use everyone else’s response to the taste of the truffles to work out if they are nice or not as I don’t like the taste of strawberry! It is one of the few flavours (along with banana, liquorice and honey) that I really don’t like but strangely, I like actual strawberries.

The white chocolate is a lot harder to work with than dark chocolate as it is has lot slimier feeling when you are trying to roll them into balls and does melt a lot quicker but it does have it’s advantages to.

Firstly – you can colour the white chocolate into any colour you like using usual food colourings. For me, I always use gel colours and never the liquids because they completely change the consistency of what you are working with and are less vibrant. The gel colours only need a very small amount to make something look quite interesting.

Secondly – white chocolate doesn’t have too much of its own taste so you need to add less flavourings.

I wasn’t sure whether I had put too much of the strawberry essence in as it was far too sickly for me, but according to my sister it was just right.

I have to say that it is really nice making your own chocolates, especially when people look quite impressed, and the next step is to make the boxes to put them in so I can give them away as gifts so they look very pretty.

Luckily as I have a graphic designer for a husband and my cousin is very good at free hand drawing, I’m sure my labels will be better than my boxes!

In a bain marie (a bowl over boiling water making sure the water doesnt touch the bottom of the bowl) gently melt the chocolate, butter and double cream till it is all combined. You can also do this in the microwave.

Take off the heat and stir in the stawberry flavouring and food colouring till it is all combined. Don’t worry if it looks a little greasy at this stage.

Put it in the fridge for a couple of hours or overnight. It will set quite hard and loose its greasy look when ready.

Take out of the fridge about an hour – 2 hours before you plan on rolling the truffles as this will give it time to soften up. Using a teaspoon measure out a small amount and drop into the icing sugar on a plate.

Using the icing sugar to stop it sticking or melting, roll it into balls and put into small paper cases (I use petite four cases or tiny cupcake ones)

The truffles will keep in the fridge for up to a week… and if you have friends and family who enjoy them then they’ll last about 30 minutes.

On Saturday we were walking past one of those old fashioned sweet shops so I nipped in to get myself some rum truffles (or rum balls as they used to be called when I was little). Although I did enjoy eating them I didn’t like paying 99p for 100g! I don’t know if it was just me but that seemed a little steep.
So I decided to have a go at making my own truffles and I am glad I did because they are so easy to make.

From now on I think I am going to call myself the happy little truffle maker. I don’t know why people don’t make them all of the time, or is it one of the best kept secrets that they are so easy to do?

Pricing them up to I think I made 30 truffles and it cost:
£1 for the cream (though I could have bought a smaller one)
60p for the chocolate (this was Asda smart price dark but it is surprisingly good)
£1 for chocolate sprinkles
Dash of Shaun’s dark rum from the cupboard

So for £2.60 I have made enough truffles to eat to make myself very sick if I want to – I would hate to think how much they would have cost to buy in an expensive sweet shop.
In the end I decided to share them out and gave a box to my mom, bought a box in for work and kept a box for myself.

If I get into this a bit more I am going to have to buy a few supplies off eBay.
Yes, I do see the irony that my little project of making cheap chocolates might turn out to be a little more expensive but it’s also my hobby and will help keep me occupied whilst waiting for the baby to come… or at least that’s how I can justify it to myself.

If you want to use the same recipe I did then it is James Martin’s recipe and can be found on the BBC website here: Rum Truffle Recipe